Description

At my first sight of a painting by Samuel Bak, I had the keen sense that he was telling me stories with his brush. Now that at long last he has written this book, I find it no wonder that he has painted with his pen.... Among the tens and hundreds of books I have read about the pre-Shoah and post-Shoah period... Bak’s book is unique. Despite being suffused with a sense of loss, horror, degradation, and death, it is ultimately a sanguine, funny book, full of the love of life, rocking with an almost cathartic joy. At times I found myself bursting out laughing... a marvelous ode, a colorful hymn to the forces of life, love, creation, and the joys of the senses. —From the Foreword by Amos Oz

In Painted in Words internationally renowned artist Samuel Bak sets aside his brushes to narrate the stories of his life—as a child in Nazi-occupied Vilna, as a youth in European refugee camps, and as a maturing artist in Israel, France, Italy, Switzerland, and the United States. With gentle humor, the child prodigy of the faraway past and the accomplished artist of today engage in a spirited dialogue from which emerges a self-portrait of "The Artist as a Young—and middle-aged and aging—Survivor." The brilliance, vision, and virtuosity that Bak brings to his painting are equally in evidence in his writing. This deeply touching work is an important contribution to Holocaust literature and art history.

Author Bio

Samuel Bak, born in Vilna in 1933, had the first exhibition of his drawings at the age of nine in the Vilna ghetto. Escaping after its destruction, he emigrated to Israel, where he studied at the Bezalel Art School in Jerusalem. In an artistic career of over forty years he has had numerous exhibitions in museums and galleries throughout Israel, Europe, and the United States. Since 1993 he has lived in the Boston area with his wife, Josée.

Bak's other publications include Landscapes of Jewish Experience; Chess as Metaphor in the Art of Samuel Bak; The Game Continues: Chess in the Art of Samuel Bak; and The Past Continues.

Customer Reviews

Table of Contents

Preliminary Table of Contents:

The following is a list of chapter titles. The book itself doesn't have a Table of Contents.

Foreword: Painted in Words, Narrated in Colors and Light, by Amos Oz

Chapter One The PinkasChapter Two How All This Writing BeganChapter Three Aunt Yetta's MagicChapter Four On Father's Side: The BaksChapter Five Sailing on Rachel's Wet FloorChapter Six Another Realm: Her Highness XeniaChapter Seven Three Stories in Search of My FatherChapter Eight On Mother's Side: The Yochels and the NadelsChapter Nine Many Loves and a Deep FriendshipChapter Ten Events Follow EventsChapter Eleven Mother's TutoringChapter Twelve What, Now, and When: On My Art and MyselfChapter Thirteen ClosureAfterwords